


top of that mountain we wanted to stand

by geneeste



Series: Stay Gold [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pay No Attention to the Woman Behind the Curtain, Platonic Soulmates of My Heart, repost, season 5, very light Oliver/Felicity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geneeste/pseuds/geneeste
Summary: It’s Felicity that makes him pause, who won’t look him in the eye. And now that he thinks about it, he’s been back for a few weeks and she’s yet to really talk to him on her own. She’ll answer him if he asks her a question, but she hasn’t really spoken to him or spent any time with him outside of the lair.
Relationships: John Diggle & Felicity Smoak
Series: Stay Gold [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572943
Kudos: 10





	top of that mountain we wanted to stand

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! You might notice that this is not a new fic. I’ve been doing some archiving of old fic and realized that I didn’t love how bloated the collection “So It Goes” had gotten; it’s not very reader-friendly, particularly to readers who like to use tagging as a way to filter out stuff they don’t want to read. So I’m pulling out the longer works and publishing them as stand-alone fics. If you’re a subscriber and getting notifications about these, sorry about that! It’s not my intention to spam you, and I backdated these works to help distinguish them from new ones. Thanks for your patience, and happy reading!
> 
> —-
> 
> I wanted to write a moment between Diggle and Felicity, addressing some of the issues I had with how they interacted last season, so here’s a short little thing. Could conceivably be considered a sequel (or at least a companion to) we’re on our way through rugged land (Chapter 2 of this work).
> 
> Title from ‘Stay Gold’ by First Aid Kit.

It takes all the way through dinner with everyone for Diggle to realize that it was a terrible idea.

It’s not Lyla; she’s seated beside him, her hand warm on his leg and steady as ever. Thea is game for any conversation, and Oliver just seems happy that everyone is in one place and one piece. He and Thea have been carrying the conversation all night, Diggle just didn’t notice it until now.

It’s Felicity that makes him pause, who won’t look him in the eye. And now that he thinks about it, he’s been back for a few weeks and she’s yet to really talk to him on her own. She’ll answer him if he asks her a question, but she hasn’t really spoken to him or spent any time with him outside of the lair.

The realization leaves him feeling uneasy and concerned as he watches her. Felicity’s sitting between Lyla and Thea, looking down at her plate, pushing the food around idly. She hasn’t eaten much.

Lyla touches his shoulder as she rises, getting his attention. “I’m going to get dessert. Can you help me clear the table?”

He smiles up at her as he follows. “Absolutely.”

It’s a routine he’s missed, moving with Lyla around their home. They work well together, efficiently, and the normalcy of the chores helps him feel grounded. So do Lyla’s hand on his back as she passes him on her way to the sink to rinse their plates, and how she stands close to put the dishes in the washer. She looks beautiful tonight, and he doesn’t think his heart will ever stop racing when she’s near.

As if she knows what he’s thinking, she smirks up at him and then kisses his cheek, lingering for a second that has him leaning down into her. “You can finish up here, can’t you?”

Diggle hums at her in agreement, and she moves away to prepare the pie they’d bought from a bakery that reopened from down the street. It doesn’t take long to load the dishwasher, and he takes the pie from her while she disposes of the box it came in.

By the time he’s back at the dinner table doling out pie to everyone, Lyla is coming out of the kitchen with a full trash bag, which she sets against the wall by the door.

Felicity looks up and sees it, then gets up. “I’ll take that out.”

Lyla waves at her to sit down as she heads back to her own seat. “Don’t worry about it, John can get it later.”

But Felicity seems eager to get away. “I don’t mind.”

For some reason, it puts his back up. “Felicity, leave it. I’ll get it.”

“It’s fine, I got used to helping while you were gone,” Felicity replies.

_While you were gone_. It’s an innocent enough statement, but there’s a hardness to her voice that grates on his nerves, and Lyla winces beside him. The atmosphere in the room has become tense, and he sees Oliver and Thea exchange a look out of the corner of his eye.

He’s not sure how they ended up arguing over something as stupid as who will take out the trash, but it feels very much like that’s not the _only_ thing they’re arguing about, and Diggle is completely lost as he rises to go after Felicity.

“Johnny,” Lyla says, a warning tone in her voice that he doesn’t understand.

“I’m just going to go check on her,” he says absently, and follows Felicity out into the hall.

Felicity has already thrown the bag down the chute and is on her way back when he steps out into the hall and closes the door behind him. She slows when she sees him, apparently wary.

That grates too. “Is there something you’d like to talk to me about?” he tries to sound welcoming, cheerful even, but the way her face shuts down tells him he wasn’t successful.

“No,” she says shortly. “Nothing.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Really. Did you think I haven’t noticed how you’re avoiding me, or that you just snapped at me in there?”

“I’m sorry, Dig,” she says, not sounding at all sorry, “I’m just tired.”

“I think it’s more like you’re upset with me, and I’d like to know why.”

“You’d like to know why,” she repeats flatly.

“Yes, Felicity, I would,” he replies, exasperated.

She mumbles something he thinks is _I guess we’re doing this now_ and then louder,“Okay, where should I start?” she asks, tapping her foot on the floor in an angry gesture. “Should I start with how _you_ barely spoke to _me_ when Oliver and I broke up? Or with how you shut everyone out after Laurel died? Or with how you left Lyla and Sara here to go play G.I. Joe in Chechnya? Which should I cover first?”

Her words - her body language, even - is so belligerent that Diggle is shocked silent for a moment. But then what she actually said sets in, and he starts to feel an incredulous anger form. “Are you serious? First of all, my relationship with Lyla and Sara is _none of your business_. And if you’re angry because you think I chose Oliver over you-”

She cuts him, stepping forward suddenly. “That is _not_ what this is about-”

“Laurel hit us all hard, Felicity. And if I recall correctly, you had no problem with letting me shut down over that.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “I know. I apologized for that, and I’m still sorry. But we could have helped each other, I could have helped you, if you’d stayed-”

Her voice is high and thready, and it stabs daggers into him, because he never thought he’d be the kind of man who would make her sound so upset. There is truth to her words, and that makes him angrier - he doesn’t want her to be right. He doesn’t want to think about how things might have been better if he hadn’t run.

“How were you expecting to help me? I know you have abandonment issues because of your father, but I am not your father, and this wasn’t about you.”

He regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth, because she flinches. As much as he meant that it wasn’t anyone else’s responsibility to fix him, he knows he said it completely the wrong way. He could have slapped her and hurt her less.

His apartment door opens sharply. “That’s enough,” Oliver quietly but with force. Oliver clearly was listening in - made easier thanks to their raised voices.

“I’m sorry,” Diggle says, chastened. “That’s not what I meant to say.” 

He glances at Oliver briefly, but doesn’t say anything to the man - he feels embarrassed and not a little ashamed. Oliver doesn’t acknowledge him, just looks at Felicity, making sure she’s okay. 

Felicity eyes the floor. “I’m fine, Oliver. You can go back inside.”

Oliver hesitates for a minute, looking between Diggle and Felicity, but then he turns to go back in, sending a hard look at Diggle on his way. Diggle figures he deserves that, so he just accepts it with a nod.

Quiet reigns. Diggle looks at the ceiling, trying to articulate his thoughts better. “There’s nothing you could have done, Felicity. I needed to work it out myself. I needed to leave for me.” He swallowed, dreading the rest. “After Laurel, after...Andy. Felicity, I killed my brother.”

“And I killed thousands of people,” her voice breaks, and it’s all Diggle can do to keep from pulling her into his arms right then. “ _Thousands_ , John. I would have been there for you after Andy. And it’s selfish, God, I know it’s so selfish, but I needed you. I needed you after Oliver, and you weren’t there. And then with the...with the bomb. What I did. I needed you and _you left._ ”

Felicity didn’t have to say the rest: maybe she did have abandonment issues, but that was because she _had_ been abandoned. He knows she felt that people left her, that it was inevitable the people she loved would leave her. They’d had whole conversations about it.

And then he’d gone and left her too.

Remorse clogs his throat, so instead he closes the distance and wraps her up in the best hug he can manage. Her glasses press into his chest uncomfortably while she’s rigid in his arms, but he doesn’t care. He can wait for her this time.

Finally, she shudders, and he knows it’s because she’s crying. She wouldn’t want him calling attention to it, though, so he lets her cry.

When she’s calmer, he kisses the top of her head and lays his chin against her hair. He has to blink over his own stinging eyes. “I can’t apologize, Felicity, because I don’t know if I could have made a different decision. I’m not sure I’m strong enough for that anymore.”

Her arms come up and squeeze him back. “Yes, you are.”

He smiles. “Thank you for that.”

She turns her head, runs a hand under her glasses, but she doesn’t let him go. “Are you back?”

“Yeah, I’m back.”

She sighs. “Good. I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“I’ll live,” he laughs. And then more seriously, “Are we in the clear?”

She’s silent for awhile, long enough for Diggle to worry that maybe they _aren’t_ okay. Then she burroughs closer to his chest. “Yes, as long you’ll hug me for a little while longer. Five more minutes. You have a lot of time to make up for.”

He tightens his arms around her. “Deal.”


End file.
